Same Old Song: Mino Raiola’s Constant, Relentless Ulterior Motive Exposed Once Again As Super Agent Springs To Defence Of Paul Pogba

Two games. Two sodding games. That’s how far we managed to get into the 2018/19 season before the Manchester United circus came spluttering back to the forefront once again.

Driving the narrative this time is the supposed feud between Paul Pogba and Jose Mourinho, which has now been embellished with supporting cameos from Paul Scholes and Mino Raiola.

Scholes once again levelled criticism at Pogba in the aftermath of Sunday’s embarrassing 3-2 defeat against Brighton, calling the United captain an “absent leader” and “inconsistent” while sitting in as a pundit for Optus Sport.

Ever the faithful steward, this prompted Raiola to leap to his client’s defence by biting back with a couple of pugnacious Twitter barbs aimed at Scholes…

Some people need to talk for fear of being forgotten. Paul Scholes wouldn’t recognize a leader if he was in front of Sir Winston Churchill. @paulpogba

Of course, Scholes is a member of the English Football Hall of Fame and played under one of post-war football’s greatest leaders of men, so all points made in the first tweet are largely moot. It’s the second tweet that exposes Raiola’s endless, greedy contrivance.

It’s the same old patter: The super agent threatening to uproot his most lucrative commodity (Pogba) and deliver him unto to a club that will appreciate his mercurial talents (Barcelona, etc).

For all his omnipresence, Raiola actually doesn’t tweet or speak to the press all that often – only when doing so suits his or his clients’ ends.

Raiola may be serious about moving Pogba on; he may be ‘subtly’ letting United know that Mourinho/the constant criticism from ex-players is a problem if they wish to keep Pogba on the books for the long-term. To think he’s actually upset about Scholes’ comments is naive. These things are rarely done on an irked whim.

If Pogba really has had enough of Mourinho and wants to leave, so be it. Sell him on for an exorbitant fee, let Raiola sop up his similarly enormous commission and let somebody else deal with the nonsense.

United would be losing a world class talent with a genuine deep-seated affiliation for the club, but central midfielders are perfectly replaceable and it’s not like Pogba has been firing at full chat.

Of course, they could always sack Mourinho instead, which probably wouldn’t be overly disastrous either.

It’s a real shame that the player so gifted is so deeply entrenched with such a disruptive puppet-master, but that’s the way it is at the top of the shop. The individual will always come first when there’s a six-figure cut to be creamed off.

5Comments

Spot on, I think everybody is right and everydoby is wrong. Mourinho is right to complain about Woodward, how can United not be able to sign someone from Tottenham or Leicester, it’s ridiculous. You have the power, you have the money and you’re worlds apart from Real, Bayern, City, PSG, Barca. Spend it, get better, don’t start the season with Smalling, Bailly and Lindelof in defence. But he is wrong to criticise his players in public, basically all this shit talk originates from his comments to the media and he is also wrong to play football in such a negative way when you have Pogba, Sanchez, Lukaku, etc.

Pogba should really just shut up and play football, he is very inconsistent and he knows it (or he’s blind). He has talent to be one of the top 3 players on the planet and at 25 is time to grow up. On the other hand, if your manager is criticising you in public, I completely understand your wish to get out of there and if it was me, I would feel the same.

Raiola… no comments.

So… you have Woodward, Mourinho, Pogba and Raiola. All the wrong people together. How can something good possibly happen? Everyone of them should be fired. United is a mess right now and it will take 2 or 3 years to get the house in order IF they start now, which is not happening. Meanwhile, City will probably start a dynasty while United only cares about their next official toilet paper sponsor.

What does an agent do that a player couldn’t do? All of these agent supported players seem to have a mouth on them, and not a bit scared to use them. With an agent It’s not a symbiotic relationship, just parasitic. Do the players think that little of their negotiating skills?

Six figure? More like eight! Raiola reportedly got £41,000,000 on the Pogba transfer to MU.

SangVieux. At first glance the agent just seems to cream a cut of the transfer fees, which does need to be restricted. Agents do a lot more though, negotiating advertising contracts, image rights and generating income away from the field. Things players like Rooney can’t even spell let alone do for themselves.

A good agent will also ensure his client has continued income after he retires. Much has been made of G-Nev’s business interests, how much of that was him and how much was a little help from his agent do you think?

‘Super Agents’ like Raiola who seem hellbent on getting as much from a transfer as possible can f**k right off of course.